NO WORK SESSION THIS COMING WEEK---HAVE AN ENJOYABLE PRESIDENTIAL BIRTHDAY HOLIDAY WEEK!

William Joseph Reynolds is a Presidential historian. In honor of Presidents week I thought you would enjoy the following bits of information about some of our Presidents…. (this will be helpful if you choose to compete for a spot on Jeopardy!). Mr. Reynolds sent me the following questions/answers. Enjoy and think about our Presidents on your day off next week!

PAUL FEINER

Who was the only president buried in Washington, DC? Woodrow Wilson is buried at the Washington National Cathedral.

Name the former First Lady to convert to Catholicism. Julia Gardiner Tyler, the 2nd Mrs. John Tyler (1820-1889)

Both President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney earned their law degrees at Harvard University. Who was the only other president to do so? Rutherford B. Hayes.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis was the son-in-law of which US President? Zachary Taylor.

Five former presidents sought their old jobs back. Grover Cleveland was the only one to do so, successfully, serving as our 22nd & 24th president. Name the former presidents who lost their party's nomination.

Martin Van Buren lost the 1844 Democratic Presidential nomination

Ulysses S. Grant lost the 1880 Republican Presidential nomination.

Theodore Roosevelt lost the 1912 Republican Presidential nomination.

Name the former presidents who ran as Third Party Presidential candidates.

Martin Van Buren (1848 Free Soil Democratic Party)

Millard Fillmore (1856 American 'Know Nothing Party)

Theodore Roosevelt (1912 Progressive 'Bull Moose' Party)

Name the six US Presidents whose Vice-Presidents died during their term of office (one two term president had BOTH of his Vice-Presidents die in office)

James Madison - both VPs died

Franklin Pierce

Ulysses S. Grant

Grover Cleveland - 1st VP died

William McKinley

William Howard Taft

Name the seven US Vice-Presidents to die in office.

George Clinton (Madison's in 1812)

Elbridge Gerry (Madison's in 1814)

William Rufus DeVane King (Pierce's in 1853)

Henry Wilson (Grant's in 1875)

Thomas A. Hendricks (Cleveland's 1st in 1885)

Garret Augustus Hobart (McKinley's in 1899)

James Schoolcraft Sherman (Taft's in 1912)

Name the last US President not to have attended college. Harry S Truman

Name the longest lived president at the time of his death. Gerald R. Ford in 2006 (93 years, 165 days). Ronald Reagan comes in a close second at 93 years, 120 days.

Lizzie Jennings, a Black woman in Brooklyn, went to court in the mid-1850s to protest her being denied access to board a public streetcar (similar to the Rosa Parks protest 100 years later). A future president successfully argued her case in court. Name him.

Name the future president whose nomination to become US Minister to Great Britain was rejected by one tie-breaking vote cast by the then sitting Vice-President (a political adversary of his). In Jan. 1832, Vice-President John C. Calhoun cast the tie breaking vote rejecting Martin Van Buren's nomination to become US Minister to Great Britain.

Name the first president to be the target of a Presidential assassination attempt.

In January 1835, while leaving the US Capitol after attending a Congressman's memorial service, President Andrew Jackson was approached by a deranged housepainter Richard Lawrence. He fired two pistols at the president, but, miraculously, both guns misfired. Authorities, upon examining he pistols, could not figure out why the guns had msifired.

Who served as the prosecuting attorney at the trial of Richard Laawrence for his attempted assassination of President Andrew Jackson.

Francis Scott Key, who 20 years earlier, had written 'The Star Spangled Banner.'

Who was president when 'The Star Spangled Banner' officially became our national anthem? Herbert Clark Hoover in 1931.

Name the only two Presidential-Vice Presidential teams who were elected, who had one syllable last names.

Franklin Pierce - William Rufus DeVane King (1852)

George Herbert Walker Bush - James Danforth Quayle (1988)

Both the youngest and oldest Vice-Presidents came from the same state. Name them and the state.

John C. Breckinridge (36) - Buchanan's VP

Alben W. Barkley (71) - Truman's VP

Kentucky

Name the oldest and youngest Presidential and Vice-Presidential teams elected.

Harry S. Truman and Alben W. Barkley. HST was 64 years, 257 days and Barkley was 71 years, 57 days on Jan. 20, 1949

William Jefferson Clinton and Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Clinton was 46 years, 149 days and Gore was 44 years, 232 days on Jan. 20, 1993.

Who was the only ex-President to be elected to the US House of Representatives? John Quincy Adams served in the US House of Representatives from 1831 - 1848.

Who was the only ex-President to be elected to the US Senate? Andrew Johnson in 1874.

Who was the only ex-President to sit on the Supreme Court? In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, where he served from 1921 - 1930.

Name the only elected president to lose re-nomination by his party. Franklin Pierce, elected in 1852, lost the 1856 Democratic Presidential nomination.

Name the Democratic president who was nominated on the party's 49th ballot (the longest ballot process for a successful candidate).

Franklin Pierce in 1852

Name the Republican president who was nominated on the party's 36th ballot (the longest ballot process for a successful candidate)

James A. Garfield in 1880.

Name the losing presidential candidate who won his party's nomination on the 103rd ballot. John W. Davis won the 1924 Democratic Presidential nomination on the 103rd ballot. He lost the General Election to incumbent Calvin Coolidge.

Name the two Vice-Presidents to resign from office. John C. Calhoun in Dec. 1832 and Spiro T. Agnew in Oct. 1973.

Name the only (pre-presidential) election that Theodore Roosevelt lost.

Theodore Roosevelt unsuccessfully ran for New York City Mayor in 1886.

Name the two (pre-presidential) elections that Franklin D. Roosevelt lost.

Franklin D. Roosevelt lost the 1914 Democratic Primary for US Senator

Franklin D. Roosevelt lost the 1920 Vice-Presidential election. ( The team of Cox and Roosevelt lost to Harding and Coolidge)

Name the five presidents who lost Gubernatorial elections

Millard Fillmore lost as the Whig candidate for Governor of New York in 1844

Warren G. Harding lost as the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1910.

Richard M. Nixon lost as the Republican candidate for Governor of California in 1962.

Jimmy Carter lost the Democratic primary for Governor of Georgia in 1966, was subsequently elected in 1970, serving from 1971-75.

Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas, at age 32, in 1978, lost re-election in 1980, and subsequently was elected in 1982, serving as Governor from 1982 - 1993.

Name the two presidents who faced each other in a race for the US House of Representatives.

In 1788, James Madison defeated James Monroe for a seat in the US House of Representatives.

Name the five presidents who lost US Senate elections

Abraham Lincoln (Illinois) lost two US Senate elections (1855 and 1858)

Former President Andrew Johnson (Tennessee) lost a US Senate election in 1869, was elected in 1874.

Benjamin Harrison (Indiana) lost his bid for re-election in 1887.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York) lost the 1914 Democratic primary for US Senator.

George H.W. Bush (Texas) lost the 1970 US Senate election.

Who lost the 1856 Republican Vice-Presidential nomination?

Abraham Lincoln

Who lost the 1956 Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination?

John F. Kennedy

Who was the first incumbent President to travel abroad? Theodore Roosevelt, in 1906, to observe construction of the Panama Canal.

Who was the first incumbent President to travel to Europe? Woodrow Wilson - in 1918 -- to participate in the Paris Treaty of Versailles.

Who was the first President to ride to his inauguration in an automobile? Warren G. Harding in 1921.

Who was the first First Lady to ride with her husband in the Inaugural carriage (usually the outgoing president would do so)?

Helen Herron Taft in 1909.

Who was the first First Lady to hold the Bible as her husband was inaugurated as President?

'Lady Bird' Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson on Jan 20, 1965.

Lyndon B. Johnson won his first election to the US Senate (1948) by how many votes?

87.

President Rutherford B. Hayes removed this future president from his position as Collector of the Port of New York.

Chester A. Arthur

Known as 'Uncle Veto,' this president vetoed twice the number of the cumulative number of vetoes made by his predecessors.

In his first non-consecutive term, Grover Cleveland vetoed 414 bills. 412 of the 414 vetoes were sustained. 2 were overridden by Congress.

Name the seven widower Presidents

Thomas Jefferson

Andrew Jackson

Martin Van Buren

John Tyler (Tyler became president on April 6, 1841; His first wife Letitia died on Sept. 10, 1842. Tyler married Julia Gardiner on June 26, 1844, thus becoming the first president to marry while in office)

Woodrow Wilson's wife Ellen Louise Axson died on Aug. 6, 1914. Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt on Dec. 18, 1915, thus becoming the third president to marry while in office.

The only president to be married in the White House was bachelor Grover Cleveland on June 2, 1886 to Frances Folsom in the Blue Room. He was the second bachelor elected president; the first being James Buchanan.

The father of Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, George Romney served as Governor of Michigan. Name the three sons of governors to become president.

William Henry Harrison's father, Benjamin Harrison V, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was Governor of Virginia from 1781 - 1784, John Tyler's father, John Tyler, served as Governor of Virginia from 1808 - 1811 and Franklin Pierce's father, Benjamin Pierce, served as Governor of New Hampshire from 1829 - 1830.

The future president John Tyler, himself, served as Governor of Virginia from 1825 - 1827, so, if Mitt Romney is elected, he and his father would be the second father-son governors.

Name the three presidents whose both parents were alive to see their sons become president.

Ulysses Simpson Grant

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

George W. Bush

Four fathers, in addition to that of Grant, Kennedy and George W. Bush, lived to see their sons take office as president...the other ones being

John Adams. His son John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as our 6th president on March 4, 1825. John Adams, at the age of 90, died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Independence.

Millard Fillmore's father Nathaniel.

Warren G. Harding's father Dr. George Tryon Harding

Calvin Coolidge's father John

Name the father who swore in his son as President. In the wee hours of the morning of Aug 3, 1923, a messenger gave word to Vice-President Coolidge's father that President Warren G. Harding had died in San Francisco. John Coolidge awakened his son, who was visiting his father at the family homestead, and being a Notary Public swore in his son as the 30th president on Aug 3, 1923 at 2:47am.

14 mothers were alive to see their sons become president

George Washington

John Adams

James Madison

James K. Polk

Ulysses S. Grant

James A. Garfield

William McKinley

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry S Truman

John F. Kennedy

Jimmy Carter

George Herbert Walker Bush

William Jefferson Clinton

George W. Bush

Who was the only president, who upon taking the oath of office, said, "I do solemnly affirm,' rather than 'I do solemnly swear?"

Franklin Pierce

Name the president, who upon receiving the letter notifying him of his presidential nomination, initially refused the letter and sent it back because it came with 'postage due.'

Zachary Taylor

Name the president who, within a fourteen week period went from being a US Senator, Governor of New York, to US Secretary of State.

Martin Van Buren (Dec. 20, 1828 - March 12, 1829).

Name the president who went from being elected mayor, to governor, and to president within three years.

Grover Cleveland

Mayor of Buffalo - 1881

Governor of New York - 1882

President - 1884

Name the three presidents who served as Mayor

Andrew Johnson - Greeneville, Tennessee

Grover Cleveland - Buffalo, NY

Calvin Coolidge - Northhampton, Massachusetts

Who was the only unsuccessful Vice-Presidential nominee to be later elected President?

Franklin D. Roosevelt ran unsuccessfully for Vice-President in 1920

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932

Name the two presidents who served as Lieutenant Governors of their respective states.

Warren G. Harding served as Ohio's Lt. Governor from 1904-1905

Calvin Coolidge served as Massachusetts' Lt. Governor from 1916-1918.

This future president was an assistant teacher at the New York Institution for the Blind. One of his pupils was the famous hymnist Fanny Crosby.

Grover Cleveland

At age 17, this future president had a gallstone surgically removed without any anesthesia or antiseptics.

James K. Polk

This future First Lady taught at a school for the deaf.

Grace Coolidge

Name the President and First Lady who would converse with each other in Chinese in order for the White House staff not to understand what they were saying.

Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover

Name the former president, who was experiencing financial hardships after a series of bad investments, when the legendary author Mark Twain convinced him to write his memoirs. Battling throat cancer, he died just days after completing his manuscript. His memoirs proved to be a best seller and proved financially advantageous for his widow and heirs.

Ulysses S. Grant

Name the first president born after the successful conclusion of the American Revolution.

Martin Van Buren

Name the youngest president to die of natural causes.

James K. Polk retired from the presidency on March 4, 1849. He died three months later, on June 15, 1849, at age 53 years, 225 days.

Name the four former presidents who, while traveling through Europe, had private audiences with the pope.

After leaving office, former Presidents Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore met separately with Pope Pius IX in Rome in 1855. Pius IX would also meet Franklin Pierce in November 1857. In 1878, Ulysses S. Grant met Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican.

Name the president who played host to the first visit to the United States by a member of the British Royal Family.

In the Fall of 1860, President James Buchanan played host to HRH, the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. During the three day visit, the President gave the Prince a tour of George Washington's Mount Vernon and paid their respects at the tomb of our first commander-in-chief.

Name the future president who went in on a business to open a frozen orange juice manufacturing plant, but this venture failed within two years.

Richard M. Nixon

Before being renamed Camp David in honor of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's grandson, what was the original name of the Maryland mountain presidential retreat.

Shangri-La.

Name the three presidents who were born posthumously (their fathers died before they were born).

Andrew Jackson

Rutherford Birchard Hayes

William Jefferson Clinton

Name the two former Vice-Presidents who unsuccessfully sought election to their old jobs.

Name the future president who was wounded four times during his military service in the Civil War.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Name the president who retained his entire Cabinet, without any changes, throughout his four year term of office.

Franklin Pierce

At the time of this ex-president's death, he was an elected member of the Confederate Congress, and as such, his death was not formally recognized by the federal government. (It would be formally recognized 50 years later)

John Tyler

Name the only Eagle Scout to become president.

Gerald R. Ford

Name the first president to be born in a hospital.

Jimmy Carter

A military aide to both Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, he took a medical leave sabbatical to Europe, during which time he decided to whom he would help in the upcoming presidential campaign. Unfortunately, we will never know the answer to this question, as he was one of the passengers who perished on the Titanic on the night of April 14, 1912. Name him.

Major Archibald Butt

Name the first president to serve a constitutionally limited term as president (as provided by the 22nd Amendment.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Whose presidency was known as the 'Era of Good Feeling?'

James Monroe

Which president was a one time 'prisoner of war?'

At the age of 14, Andrew Jackson and his brother were captured by the British during the American Revolution. They were forced to walk 40 miles to Camden, SC, where they were incarcerated for two weeks in a POW camp; his brother died of smallpox not long after their release. His widowed mother died, a short while later, having contracting cholera, while she was tending to the other American POWs.

Whose elections were decided by the US House of Representatives?

Thomas Jefferson's in 1800.

John Quincy Adams' in 1824.

Whose election was decided by a specially appointed electoral commission?

Rutherford B. Hayes' in 1876.

Whose election was decided by the US Supreme Court by a 5 to 4 ruling?

George W. Bush in 2000.

Who were our left-handed presidents?

Harry S Truman

Gerald R Ford

George H.W. Bush

William Jefferson Clinton

Barack Obama

In 1992: All three candidates for the presidency, incumbent George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and H. Ross Perot were all left-handed.

In 2008: Both Barack Obama and John McCain were left-handed.

Which president appointed the first woman to the Cabinet.

In 1933, Franklin D. Roosvelt appointed Frances Perkins to the Cabinet as Secretary of Labor.

Which president appointed the first woman to the US Supreme Court.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the US Supreme Court.

Which president appointed the first woman to serve as US Secretary of State.

William Jefferson Clinton appointed Madeleine Albright in 1997.

Who was the first president born west of the Mississippi River?

Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10, 1874.

Name four election years and the major party candidates in which each of the opposing candidates hailed from the same state?

1860 - Abraham Lincoln (R) and Stephen A. Douglas (the Northern Democratic candidate) each represented the state of Illinois.

1904 - Incumbent Theodore Roosevelt (R) and Alton B. Parker (D) both represented the state of New York.

1920 - Warren G. Harding (R) and James Middleton Cox (D) both represented the state of Ohio.

1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) and Thomas E. Dewey (R) both represented the state of New York.

Who was the only president, who served a full four year term, not to have made an appointment to the Supreme Court during his term of office?

Jimmy Carter

In 1991, this president’s body was exhumed, more than 140 years after his death. Who was he and why?

In 1991, researchers exhumed the body of Zachary Taylor to deal with persistent speculation that Southern politicians had arranged to have the nation’s 12th president poisoned because he opposed extending slavery to the Western territories.

Taylor, who had been in robust health, died at the age of 65 in 1850, five days after attending a Fourth of July groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Monument. The president had sought refuge from the stifling heat and humidity by consuming a pitcher of iced milk and a bowl of cherries.

On June 26, 1991, George Nichols, Kentucky ’s chief medical examiner, reported that Taylor ’s death was a result of any of “a myriad of natural diseases which could have produced the symptoms of gastroenteritis.”

Nuclear tests conducted at Tennessee ’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory did find traces of arsenic in hair, bone and dried fleshy tissues from Taylor ’s remains. But they appeared to be naturally occurring and too low in dosage to be regarded as lethal, Nichols told reporters.

Nichols’s conclusive findings, ruling out any possibility of foul play, may not have satisfied the historian Samuel Eliot Morison. He wrote in his “Oxford History of the American People” that Taylor died of a “combination of official scandals, Washington heat and doctors.”

Morison believed Taylor “would probably have recovered if left alone.” The historian charged that Taylor’s physician, assisted by “a Baltimore quack,” performed what could be regarded as a medical assassination. Morison wrote: They “drugged him with ipecac, calomel, opium and quinine (at 40 grains a whack) and bled and blistered him too. On July 9, he gave up the ghost.”